AAHA announces new One Health guidelines

The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) announced the release of its 2025 AAHA One Health Guidelines: Navigating Cross-Disciplinary Partnerships. These guidelines are a historic milestone because it is the first set of guidelines that bring human and veterinary medical professionals together to create a roadmap for collaboration.

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According to an organizational release, this is the first time AAHA has assembled a task force of experts from public health, human medicine, and veterinary medicine to address communication barriers as well as create strategies that can benefit patients and families by considering pets and humans as a family unit. These new guidelines also address critical needs for veterinary and human medical teams to work side by side in a holistic, family-based approach to healthcare.

“The highest quality care—for individuals, families, communities, and our shared environments—depends on true interprofessional collaboration. Yet, despite this widely accepted principle, one of the most enduring gaps exists between human and veterinary medicine. The AAHA One Health Guidelines aim to bridge that divide—offering both inspiration and direction to support a more connected, effective, and comprehensive model of care,” Brian Sick, MD, MHA, FACP, FNAP, cochair of the AAHA One Health Guidelines, said in the release.¹

The guidelines give healthcare professionals practical solutions for scenarios that commonly intersect animal and human health, such as zoonotic diseases, mental health issues, disability accommodations, and family welfare concerns.

Key components of the guidelines include¹:

• Clear criteria for determining when cases require a One Health approach
• Recommendations for case follow-up.
• Standardized terms and definitions to establish a common language between professionals.
• Structured protocols for reaching out to other professionals, like social workers, physicians, and medical specialists.

Another key component of the guidelines is case studies that cover critical topics in detail for ADA accommodations, cognitive function issues in older adult clients, infectious diseases transmissible between animals and people, recognition of intimate partner violence and animal abuse, and tick-borne diseases.

“I am excited to have contributed to the AAHA One Health Guidelines, which equip our veterinary healthcare teams with the essential tools and framework to collaborate with our colleagues in human healthcare,” said Cheryl Roth, DVM, DABVP (Canine and Feline), co-chair of the AAHA One Health Guidelines.

“By fostering connections between these two fields, we can more effectively address zoonotic diseases, share insights on preventive care for the whole family, and create comprehensive wellness plans that consider the health of both pets and their owners. This collaboration will not only enhance the care we provide to our animal patients but will also support the families that love them, promoting healthier communities overall,” Roth continued.

Through leveraging resources and responses that currently exist, the guidelines will help enable healthcare professionals to give more comprehensive care that can address the interconnected health care needs for human and animal family members.

The guidelines are available on the AAHA website and were made possible with support from Merck Animal Health.

Other recent AAHA releases

Along with these new guidelines, AAHA announced the release of 4 other groundbreaking new Standards of Accreditation for nontherapeutic, devocalization, ear cropping, and feline declawing.² These new standards also mark another historic milestone for the AAHA, because these are the first standards in AAHA’s history to touch on these topics. AAHA stated in its release regarding these releases that member practices are expected to now forgo these procedures unless there is an existing clear medical indication.

The other new standard encourages AAHA-accredited practices to initiate conversations about microchipping at a patient’s first visit. These practices will also be expected to verify the functionality and location of the patient’s microchip annually.

“The American Animal Hospital Association was founded on the belief that small animals are deserving of the highest quality care from industry professionals. We continually assess our Standards to ensure they are aligned with current best practices across the profession. We are happy to share that our Board of Directors has approved these latest standards as part of our commitment to continuous improvement on the journey to excellence,” Jessica Vogelsang, DVM, AAHA chief medical officer, concluded.²

References

1. AAHA Releases Groundbreaking One Health Guidelines to Bridge Human and Veterinary Medicine. News release. American Animal Hospital Association. August 27, 2025. Accessed September 1, 2025. https://www.aaha.org/news/aaha-releases-groundbreaking-one-health-guidelines-to-bridge-human-and-veterinary-medicine/
2. AAHA Launches New Standards of Accreditation. News release. American Animal Hospital Association. July 22, 2025. Accessed September 2, 2025. https://www.aaha.org/news/aaha-launches-new-standards-of-accreditation/